Giant takes up fight against rare diseases

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Britain’s biggest drugs company has created a division to deal specifically with rare diseases, such as Huntington’s, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and hard-to-treat cancers.

The decision by GlaxoSmithKline marks an evolution in attitude by the world’s largest drugs groups. Many have ignored diseases that affect hundreds or thousands of patients a year, as they can be difficult to treat and have a limited number of patients to sell drugs to, in favour of easier sales of, for instance, anti-depressant drugs, More recently, orphan drug legislation and approaching patent expiries on other, more widely used drugs, has forced pharmaceutical groups to reconsider